I’m rereading bits of this damn comic again for a completely different reason but I had to stop and shout a moment about this panel because
YouSLIMY SON OF A WEASEL, A REAL WEASEL NOT A GOOD WASP-EATING ONE, SMIRKING FLIRTILY AND SAYING YOU’D LIKE TO HEAR HER PLAY PIANO AFTER DINNER AS IF YOU DIDN’T KNOW FULL WELL THAT AFTER DINNER SHE IS GOING TO BE STRAPPED INTO A TORTURE CHAIR AND HAVE HER MIND REPLACED OR, AT BEST, MELTED OUT IN YOUR FATHER’S INSANE DESPERATION TO BRING BACK THE WOMAN HE OBSESSES OVER/MONSTER WHO DESTROYED MOST OF EUROPA. THIS IS WHY PEOPLE DON’T TRUST YOU, TARVEK. THIS IS IT. THAT. GOD. DAMN. LITTLE.SMIRK.
oh you poor child, you hate this and you know it and you have to hide it every second because otherwise your family will tear you to shreds; your family of conniving, backstabbing, ambitious snakes where the only way to survive is to lie better than any of them, lie and hide until all the hope and romance in your soul is snuffed out like a candle under a sheet of ice and you flirt with a girl and walk her to dinner when you know that in less than an hour she’s going to be dead and there’s nothing you can really do, nothing but act charming and under that act calculating (and be calculating, every minute of every day, for the rest of your life…) it’s not your fault, it’s theirs; it’s all theirs.
